Wildlife is disappearing faster than ever before. The WWF says the world's wildlife population dropped by 60 per cent between 1970 and 2014. It said: "Earth is losing biodiversity at a rate seen only during mass extinctions." Most of this is because of "exploding human consumption". There are more people and they are eating more, buying more, cutting down trees for beef, and using more energy. This has led to a big loss of habitat for animals.
The report says that only a quarter of the world is untouched by humans. Researchers looked at 4,000 species of animals. In South and Central America, there has been an 89 per cent loss of wildlife in four decades. The WWF wrote that the shocking loss of wildlife, "is a [depressing] reminder...of the pressure we [put] on the planet." It warned: "We can be the generation that had its chance and failed to act; that let Earth slip away."